Gal Gadot, 1985-
Born in Rosh Haayin and crowned Miss Israel at 18, Gadot served in the military and became a model, singer and martial artist. She has emerged as one of the world’s most recognized actresses, first…
Benny Gantz, 1959-
Gantz was a paratrooper who rose to serve as the chief of the IDF general staff from 2011 to 2015. He entered politics by launching Israel Resilience in late 2018, then merged it into Blue…
Jorge García-Granados, 1900-1961
García-Granados, Guatemala’s ambassador to the United Nations and a member of the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine, was moved by Chaim Weizmann’s partition pleas to UNSCOP in July 1947 and cast the first vote for…
David Lloyd George, 1863-1945
Lloyd George was the British prime minister from 1916 to 1922. His government issued the Balfour Declaration and took control of Palestine during World War I, negotiated for the inclusion of the declaration’s language at…
Amir Gilboa, 1917-1984
Ukraine-born Gilboa was one of Israel’s leading poets, winning the Bialik and Israel prizes. His poems incorporated a biblical theme of moral ambiguity and reflected his experience as a soldier in World War II with…
Ahad Ha’am (Asher Ginsberg), 1856-1927
Born in Ukraine, Ahad Ha’am joined Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) in Odesa and attended the First Zionist Congress but opposed political Zionism. He preferred cultural Zionism, creating a Jewish cultural center in Palestine as…
Glossaries, Personalities, and Terms on Zionism and Modern Israel
Glossaries This section offers easy access to names, events, and terms associated with modern Israeli history. Terms listed were used successfully by students for understanding context in learning about modern Israel and the Middle East….
Arthur Goldberg, 1908-1990
Goldberg resigned as a U.S. Supreme Court justice in 1965 to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He drafted the text of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, the basis of all “land…
Leah Goldberg, 1911-1970
Raised in Lithuania, Goldberg settled in Tel Aviv in 1935 and became a Hebrew poet, literary translator, and author of children’s books and plays. She referenced the effects of World War II on Jews in…
Gila Goldstein, 1947-2017
A singer, actress, and advocate for trans and gay rights, Goldstein in 1960 was the first trans Israeli woman to have sanctioned sex reassignment surgery. She co-founded the nonprofit organization Aguda in 1975 to help…
Eliyahu Golomb, 1893-1945
Born in Belarus, Golomb settled in Palestine in 1909 and was part of the Herzliya Gymnasium’s first graduating class. A member of the Jewish Legion in World War I, he helped organize the Haganah and…
A.D. Gordon, 1856-1922
Born in Ukraine, Gordon emerged as a leader in the nascent Zionist movement. Part of the Second Aliyah, he was the rare middle-aged, devout Jew to settle in Palestine in the early 20th century. He…
Emma Gottheil, 1862-1947
Gottheil attended the Second Zionist Congress, where Theodor Herzl invited her to translate his speech into French, Italian and English. In the United States she organized women’s study groups that were the precursors of Hadassah….
Leah Gottlieb, 1918-2012
Gottlieb, who escaped the Holocaust in Hungary, was world-renowned and known as the “queen of Israeli fashion” for her swimsuit designs for Gottex, the textile company she created with her husband, Armin. The couple tried…
Abraham Granot, 1890-1962
Moldova-born Granot (originally Granovsky) led the Jewish National Fund in expanding land purchases during the British Mandate. As JNF director-general starting in 1940, he led settlement and forestry initiatives. A signatory of the Declaration of…
Eilam Gross, 1960-
Gross is a physicist at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Searching for the Higgs boson, known as the “God particle,” Gross applied machine learning in particle physics to help develop the ATLAS detector. As a…
David Grossman, 1954-
A Jerusalem native, Grossman is one of Israel’s most prolific and most acclaimed writers. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages. His 2017 novel, “A Horse Walks Into a Bar,” received the…
Dov Gruner, 1912-1947
Hungarian-born Gruner joined the Betar movement and illegally immigrated to Palestine in 1940. He served in the British army’s Jewish Brigade to fight Nazis. After World War II he joined the Irgun. He was seriously…
